FY 2026 COUNTY BUDGET GUIDELINES AND PRIORITIES FINAL DRAFT.PDF

MARICOPA COUNTY 
FY 2026 Budget Guidelines and Priorities 
For Approval by the Board of Supervisors on January 29, 2025 
 
The purpose of these guidelines and priorities is to provide direction from the 
Board of Supervisors to Elected Officials, the Judicial Branch, the County Manager, 
the Office of Budget and Finance and all departments so they can develop a 
sustainable, structurally balanced budget that achieves the County’s mission and 
strategic goals as set forth in the Maricopa County Strategic Plan within available 
resources. 
 
Property Taxes 
After consideration of all long-term pension contribution obligations and state 
mandated payments, it is anticipated the primary property tax rate will be set at 
the truth-in-taxation rate for FY 2026. 
 
Other Major Revenue Source Assumptions 
The base budget will assume the pessimistic forecast values from the County’s 
economic consultant for State-Shared Sales tax, State-Shared Vehicle License tax, 
and Jail Excise tax revenues.  
 
Employer Retirement Contribution Funding 
The base operating budget will be adjusted to fund the change to retirement 
expense based on the annually computed contribution rates determined by the 
retirement plans’ actuary. No decisions on other budget requests will be made until 
after resources have been identified to support the employer’s retirement 
contributions and any increases thereto.  
 
Employee Compensation 
Human Resources is directed to develop a targeted employee compensation 
strategy which may include pay for performance, and a focus on retention and 
service delivery. Any compensation strategy will be contingent on an evaluation of 
economic conditions and funding challenges, including additional burdens or cost 
shifts from the State of Arizona.  
 
Budget Requests 
1) Base budget requests for all departments and funds should allocate resources 
to fulfill departmental mandates and should be prepared within baseline 
amounts equal to the current budget plus authorized adjustments.  
 
The Office of Budget and Finance is directed to review and/or adjust budget 
baselines for the following: 
 
a) The annualized impact of FY 2025 budget issues or mid-year adjustments.

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b) The annualized impact of other items, including intergovernmental 
agreements and operational cost of technology initiatives, which were 
approved by the Board of Supervisors, so long as the impact was disclosed 
at the time of the initial Board approval. 
c) Items required by State law, such as judges’ and elected officials’ salary 
increases and mandated contributions to AHCCCS, ALTCS, Juvenile 
Corrections, and other mandated programs. 
 
2) All departments must submit their General Fund and Detention Fund base 
expenditure budget requests within their baseline budget unless otherwise 
provided for in these guidelines. No funding will be available for new or 
expanded programs in the General or Detention Funds. There will be no process 
for Board of Supervisor approval to review any requests above baseline which 
were not previously disclosed during a presentation to the Board of 
Supervisors.  
 
Budgeted revenue in any fund may exceed baseline amounts if justified by 
projections. 
 
Special Revenue Fund budget requests may exceed baselines, provided 
revenue projections are sufficient to retain structural balance.  
 
If the current revenue baseline in a Special Revenue fund cannot be met, 
departments must reduce both base expenditures and revenue by an amount 
sufficient to restore structural balance. 
 
3) Where a request for additional General or Detention funding to meet mandated 
services has been identified and quantified by a department during a 
presentation to the Board of Supervisors, the requesting department may 
submit an above baseline request in the prep issue budget forms provided by 
the Office of Budget and Finance.  
 
To allow for an adequate review of both existing resources as well as 
supplemental requests, the budget submission date for both the baseline and 
supplemental budget request for departments with a supplemental funding 
request will be no later than 2 weeks from the adoption of these guidelines.  
 
4) All budget submissions will be analyzed by the Office of Budget and Finance 
for potential efficiencies. 
 
User Fees 
Per the Budgeting and Accountability Policy, departments are to acknowledge as 
part of the budget submission process that all fees have been reviewed annually 
and documentation of the review has been retained in accordance with applicable

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retention schedules. Necessary changes should be presented to the Board of 
Supervisors and may not be budgeted until approved.  
 
Contingency, Reserves and Fund Balances 
The Office of Budget and Finance is directed to provide a recommendation for the 
reserved and unreserved levels of operating contingency in the General Fund. 
 
In accordance with the Board of Supervisors’ strategic goals regarding structural 
balance and reserves, fund balances will first be used to maintain reserves equal 
to two-months of prior year operating expenditures in the General and Detention 
funds. A decision on reserve levels will be made prior to allocation of General or 
Detention fund balances for any other purpose.  
 
Adjustments needed for existing capital projects will be addressed prior to any 
decisions related to the utilization of one-time funding. New requests for non-
recurring, one-time General or Detention funds will not be entertained, unless they 
were: 
• identified and quantified during a presentation to the Board or were part of 
a previous Board approved initiative and disclosed at the time of the 
Board’s approval of the initiative and  
• are necessary to meet mandated services. 
 
In accordance with the Board of Supervisors’ strategic goal regarding structural 
balance, requests to use Special Revenue fund balances should be limited to either 
building reserves or one-time, non-recurring expenditures and should not be used 
to offset an operating deficit. Any use of fund balances and other non-recurring 
sources to support an operating budget deficit must be specifically approved by 
the Board of Supervisors. 
 
Expenditure Limitation 
Increases to expenditures will be evaluated for their impact to the County’s 
Expenditure Limitation as outlined in the Arizona Constitution Article 9 Section 20 
and Arizona Revised Statute 41-563. To mitigate the impact of expenditure 
increases on the expenditure limitation, financing will be considered where there 
is an established, conservative repayment plan. 
 
Capital Improvement Program 
No funding will be available for General and Detention funded new capital 
improvement projects until reserve decisions have been made by the Board of 
Supervisors. Requests for Facilities Capital Improvement or Information 
Technology projects will be reviewed using a process defined by the Facilities 
Management Department or Enterprise Technology Department. Only projects 
that have been formally submitted to the Facilities Management Department or 
Enterprise Technology Department and identified during a budget presentation to

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the Board of Supervisors will be considered as part of the review process. Projects 
prioritized as part of this review process will be forwarded for consideration by the 
Board for funding within available resources. 
 
The Transportation Department will work with the Office of Budget and Finance to 
develop an updated Transportation Capital Improvement Program budget for FY 
2026 that, within available non-recurring resources, meets the strategic goal of 
developing, identifying funding, and beginning to implement a long-range plan for 
addressing HURF funded projects and transportation infrastructure needs.